1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to the monitoring and management of individual petroleum wells, to the management of multiple wells in a petroleum reservoir.
2. Description of Related Art
The oil and gas industry has attempted to achieve the highest value from a reservoir containing oil and gas by extracting as much as possible as quickly as possible from the wells. There have been many improvements over the last several years in extracting data from existing wells, and from seismic activities, in order to increase the percentage of hydrocarbons recovered from any particular reservoir:                1. Sensors are located temporarily or permanently in wells to indicate amounts from each production location and the condition of the reservoir through examination of pressure and temperatures.        2. Seismic data is now taken at frequent time intervals and combined with geologic and geophysical information to predict the flow of hydrocarbons though the reservoir towards the wells.        3. Large scale models have been built to simulate production under different assumptions.        4. Visualization systems have been developed to show operators in a three dimensional manner the interaction of all the information extracted from the sensors and demonstrate how the hydrocarbons are being produced.        
In spite of these improvements, three core problems remain. First, production is managed with episodic interventions in each individual well's activity. Second, the amounts and types of data generated by sensing systems in wells cause a data overload problem for operators. Too much data is produced at rates which are too high for operators to assess and respond to abnormal conditions. The cost of moving this data throughout an organization, and managing its use, is high.
Third, even if operators were able to manage these large data streams, no methods exist for exploiting information about each individual well's production, so that production from the entire reservoir can be adjusted continuously. Such a method would enable increased production from the reservoir as a whole. This has been a difficult problem, one characterized by large amounts of data that describe complex environmental interactions. In addition, managing multiple wells in a reservoir demands that decisions be made within a timeframe that allows corrective action to be effective for increased hydrocarbon production.
What is needed is a method of managing multiple wells in a reservoir, including wells that have very little instrumentation (dumb wells); instrumented wells with surface controls (intelligent and smart wells); and reservoirs that are highly instrumented with fiber optic sensors, seismic sensors, flow meters, and other instruments and controls. In addition, such method should reduce the data overload on operators so they can be more efficient when human intervention is necessary, and the method would provide continuous adjustment of well conditions to achieve optimal production at all times.